Abstract – With an exemplary donation, the National Library of France is refining its preservation policy in the field of graphic creations. The donation consists of posters produced by graphic designer Sébastien Marchal, accompanied by preparatory stages (sketches) and final versions for printing entirely dematerialized. The article will show how the preservation policy is developed, based on close collaboration with the donor and those involved in documentary policy at BnF. It will also outline the strategies deployed to meet the immediate expectations of researchers with technically non managed data.
Keywords – Preservation policy, Graphic creations, Creative process.
This paper was submitted for the iPRES2024 conference on March 17, 2024 and reviewed by Tobias Steinke, Eld Zierau, Kyle R. Rimkus and 1 anonymous reviewer. The paper was accepted with reviewer suggestions on May 6, 2024 by co-chairs Heather Moulaison-Sandy (University of Missouri), Jean-Yves Le Meur (CERN) and Julie M. Birkholz (Ghent University & KBR) on behalf of the iPRES2024 Program Committee.
The purpose of this article is to present the development of BnF's preservation policy for graphic works in the creative stages. At this stage, this policy is in a state of work-in-progress: guidelines have been defined on the basis of an exemplary case, the donation of graphic artist Sébastien Marchal, but all the means required to implement this policy have not yet been assembled, and further instructions are still needed. The article therefore focuses on BnF's first steps in the field of graphic works intended for printing, whose creation process is largely dematerialized.
In a number of areas, BnF's preservation policy is based on voluminous, structured data flows, made up of documents in their final, edited form, as is the case for the legal deposit of dematerialized sound, or of documents resulting from a controlled production process, as is the case for digitization. The approach is different for creative archives, which enter BnF's collections by acquisition or donation. A first or even a second acquisition or donation is an opportunity to gain expertise in a particular type of content, and to develop a preservation policy that will need to be tested in the case of subsequent acquisitions or donations.
For the sake of clarity, the article presents the stages in the development of the preservation policy in three separate parts. This succession of stages, presented separately, has the merit of expressing the logical sequence of the process, but it only imperfectly represents the chronological sequence: in reality, the development of the preservation policy is more iterative. It is the interactions between the various players in the process that shape positions and decisions, as stated in a prior BnF paper for iPRES [1].
In the field of graphic creations, a first donation received in 2019 had enabled us to begin to understand this type of content, but it did not constitute a relevant basis for developing a preservation policy. It was the next donation, from graphic designer Sébastien Marchal in 2022, which provided the exemplary case for building a more complete policy.
Sébastien Marchal is a French graphic designer and typographer who works mainly with activists organizations - unions, associations, collectives, etc. Social, political and cultural issues are central to his work. He distributes the results of his work on his website sebastienmarchal.fr, but also on the website of the collective “Formes des luttes” (created in 2019 after several years of collaboration between committed graphic designers) on a separate site.
After a first donation to the Engravings department in 2015, consisting of paper prints of posters, he offers BnF a new donation of printed posters covering the period 2010-2022. In addition to the prints, BnF acquire the digital creation data. As a first intention, Sébastien Marchal would like his creations to be accessible on Gallica, BnF digital library [2], provided that readers cannot retrieve the fonts of which he is the author and which he wishes to commercialize.
During the period when the outline of the donation is being defined, and at the request of the collections manager, Sébastien Marchal agrees to present his way of working to a small group of BnF colleagues, made up of the collections manager, the referent for digital entries in the Engravings department, the person in charge of the digital donation process for BnF, and a preservation expert, the pilot of the Formats group and author of BnF's format policy for the long-term preservation of data [3].
Figure 1. “The Bomb and Us” Poser project (presented here in a Windows environment)
Sébastien Marchal organizes his creations into projects. Each project can give rise to several variations depending on the desired format and medium: poster, sticker, leaflet, etc. For each project, he retains all the significant stages in the creative process. The preservation of these transitional states is justified by the need to take up unfinished ideas and extend or reuse them in new projects. He is also keenly aware of their pedagogical value in making his creative process visible. It is based on the practice and manipulation of graphic elements, leading to parallel trials and comparisons, and not on the persistent myth of sudden inspiration.
He is also the author of a font, which he uses extensively in his designs.
Sébastien Marchal works in a Mac environment and his main working tool for the 2010-2022 period is the software Adobe InDesign. Projects take the form of directories. They contain the following elements (fig. 1):
All graphic source files used in the project in a "Links" directory (fig. 2), containing mostly PSD (Photoshop), PNG or other bitmap image formats in the case of Sébastien Marchal collection;
Fonts in OTF format in a "Document fonts" directory (fig. 3);
INDD and IDML files. These are proprietary project files readable exclusively by the Adobe InDesign suite. The INDD (Adobe InDesign Document) file is a binary file adapted only to the version of InDesign by which it was produced. It contains the document's placement images, which explains its size. The IDML (InDesign Markup Language) file is a ZIP file containing multiple interdependent XML files. This format is designed to be compatible with earlier and later versions of InDesign software.
When a project is commissioned or self-published, Sébastien Marchal produces a PDF export of the final version ("Adobe PDF (print)" export format from InDesign) for the printer, which he places in the project directory.
Fig. 2 Contents of the "Document fonts" directory
Fig. 3 Contents of the "Links" folder
The Department of Engravings and Photography is responsible for the scientific and technical aspects of very rich collections in the field of graphic design, and posters in particular. However, the creative process for this type of document is very poorly documented in BnF's collections, particularly in the older collections. Today, the collections manager's aim is to remedy this state of affairs and acquire contemporary graphic works in their final form, as well as traces of the creative process, in order to build up a reference collection on contemporary graphic design.
The meeting with Sébastien Marchal having enabled us to understand his way of working and the existing traces of his creative work, our colleagues in the Engravings Department consider it appropriate to include in the BnF's collections, in addition to the printed posters, all the sketches he has deemed useful to keep, as well as the final version for printing.
Their intention to collect this data is linked to foreseeable uses by BnF readers, which are specific to each category of data.
Firstly, they identify "iconographic research"-type uses, based on the visual content of the sketches that document the graphic designer's artistic creation. In this area, they feel it is important to expose the creative process as a succession of images, comparable with each other, comparable from one poster project to another, and comparable with other collections of the same type. The researcher would thus have access to the chronology of the sketches and the visual variations in their content.
Sketches can also be used as sources for research into graphic design techniques: what software tools are used, what iconographic sources are collected or created, what fonts are used, what image processing techniques are employed.
The final version chosen by the artist and sent to the printer is also essential for research into graphic design techniques. It is a distinct object from the sketches, and represents a new stage in the creative process, corresponding to a publishing stage. It provides information on the relationship between designer and printer. Sébastien Marchal also provided us a table of his posters organized by printing mode : offset printing, digital printing or screen printing (serigraphy).
It also enables another use, that of reprinting, from a source identical to that of the original poster.
Finally, this version is a kind of digital double of the printed poster. It avoids the effort of digitization, while offering the same advantages: it limits the need for communication of the printed poster, which is complex due to its format and risky for its conservation; it also gives researchers easier access to the visual content of the poster.
At the same time as identifying the foreseeable uses of the poster's creative stages, colleagues in the Engravings Department identify a relevant type of access: disseminating this content in the BnF's digital library, Gallica, would enable this collection to be promoted to the widest possible audience, even though the final work, the printed poster, can only be consulted on site by its very nature.
Knowledge of the way in which the data was produced, on the one hand, and the clearly defined intention of the Engravings Department, on the other, make it possible to draw up a preservation policy. This involves categorizing the data for a type of content according to the stage of production to which it corresponds, defining the formats accepted for long-term preservation for each of these categories, listing the relevant properties to be preserved according to the collection department's intention in terms of uses and access for researchers, defining preservation trajectories where appropriate, and identifying the resources needed to implement them.
The type of content concerned is that of graphic creations. By this we mean born-digital documents produced by combining various elements (photographs, vector images, text) to obtain a still image intended for communication (poster, flyer, sticker, logo, advertising image, etc.).
There are 4 stages in the production process for this type of content (with their equivalent in the case of the Sébastien Marchal collection in brackets):
Raw material (fonts and source files found in the InDesign project in the "Fonts" and "Links" directories)
Graphic design in the editing stage (the entire InDesign project)
Graphic design in the finalized stage (export for printing)
Graphic design in the distribution stage (the printed poster).
The next sections of the article deals with stages 2 and 3 of the graphic work, and the considerations made in relation to the Sébastien Marchal collection in terms of formats and recommendations for the uses and access envisaged by the Engravings department.
The policy document, in its current version at the time of the donation of the Sébastien Marchal archives, defines PDF/X or, failing that, PDF as the preferred formats for "graphic documents intended for printing". The creator's PDF export therefore meets BnF's format requirements.
For this type of content, the layout is significant; otherwise it won't meet BnF's expectations in terms of use and access (1. witness to a stage in the poster's production / 2. reprint from a source identical to that of the original poster / 3. "digital double" distributed in Gallica). The question of fonts is therefore particularly important. When creating the PDF, there are three possible choices concerning fonts: embedding the fonts in their entirety; embedding only the characters used in the file; not embedding the fonts. This last option is not satisfactory for long-term preservation: if the PDF is read on a workstation that does not have the specified font, the PDF reader will substitute a default font, which can considerably alter the appearance of the document. It is therefore essential that the fonts used in text elements are embedded in the file, so that rendering can be faithful in the event that they are not present on the viewing equipment.
This is a tricky question from the outset, however, because of the way PDFs are currently consulted in Gallica. Indeed, the PDFs made available to researchers in the digital library are to be downloaded and consulted using software available in the researcher's consultation environment.
The question of fonts is further complicated by the position of the graphic designer. The recommendation to embed fonts for preservation reasons conflicts with his interests, as he envisages commercial exploitation of the font he has created. It would be possible to reduce the impact of any retrieval by embedding only the part of the characters actually used in the text elements, but in the end, only the vectorization of these elements proved acceptable to the donor.
At the time of receipt of the donation from Sébastien Marchal, there is no preservation policy at BnF for graphic creations in an editing stage, as the previous donation from a graphic designer, in 2019, did not contain this type of object.
Nevertheless, a study has been initiated, as the InDesign projects fully meet the expectations of the Engravings department for the intended uses: display of the succession of sketches for iconographic research, access to technical information on the graphic work (filters, layers, values of the various image parameters, fonts, and graphic sources). For this reason, the conservation of Sébastien Marchal's creations in a editing stage in a format unmanaged by BnF seems acceptable, on condition that the necessary investments are made for the communication of these objects: technical and financial resources to equip workstations with InDesign software, skills to be developed in the Engravings department staff. To date, these resources have not yet been made available, and the process will have to continue over the coming years.
On the other hand, in order to limit the risk associated with the unmanaged nature of InDesign projects, and to meet at least the requirements of iconographic research and access in Gallica, an export of all sketches in a format accepted for this type of content is envisaged. The PDF format was initially chosen, but although it is accepted as such in the donation processing chain, its display in Gallica differs from that of image batches. There is currently no integrated viewer in Gallica, which means that readers have to download the file to their computer in order to view it. In addition, the Gallica viewer's services are not available, in particular the functionalities implemented in the IIIF protocol: comparison of remote images, rotation, on-the-fly processing, etc.
In the case of sketches, it's preferable to have a batch of well-named images, so that they can be ordered according to the sequence chosen by the graphic designer, in TIFF or JPEG format. In all, Sébastien Marchal produced 6,627 JPEG exports from his 67 InDesign projects (fig. 4).
Fig. 4 Gallica page displaying JPEG exports of “The bomb and us” poster sketches, views 1 to 84 of 111 gallicaintramuros.bnf.fr
Sébastien Marchal's collection enables us to develop a policy for preserving the creative stages of graphic works. In the future, we would like to collect graphic designers' collections including following elements, in addition to printed posters:
preparatory sketches in an editing format that includes all traces of the creative work, as far as possible accompanied by a version in a managed distribution format suitable for the digital library (TIFF V6 single-page uncompressed or JFIF(JPEG));
the final version for printing, we expect to receive in PDF/X or PDF, with fonts or a subset of it, and, for lack of it, vectorized text. Additional information about original printing mode is also required.
The exemplary case of the Sébastien Marchal collections has taught us the extent to which collection accrual policy and preservation policy are linked. It also highlights the fact that the author plays a crucial role in preservation policy: not only does he/she pass on knowledge of how data is produced, but above all, he/she can be a real player in preservation by helping to implement the policy drawn up by the conservation institution. His involvement is invaluable, indeed indispensable, when it comes to creative data, which is more complex and less managed in terms of preservation. In the case of the Sébastien Marchal collection, the work carried out by the designer (vectorization of text in PDF exports, JPEG exports of sketches) ultimately led BnF to acquire the preparatory stages for a fee, in addition to donating the 67 printed posters.
The next step will be to test the reproducibility of the Sébastien Marchal case with other graphic design collections. At this point, his case seems highly representative. There are several reasons for this. First of all, his creative work is typical of graphic design: he combines elements to form a work of art from visual and textual elements. Most of the visual elements are reused from images created by others; on the other hand, he has created his own font. Moreover, the collection covers the years 2010 to 2022, which is a rather large period, and we observe that his way of working was constant all these years, in particular for his tools. He used, and still uses, Adobe InDesign which makes his case even more representative of graphic design practice, being the most popular software in desktop publishing, moreover in a sector with very few software available. Finally, Sébastien Marchal demonstrates a reflective approach to its own work and considers himself his work representative of graphic design practice.
It’s a real challenge to insert Adobe InDesign projects in a preservation plan. For the moment, our preservation strategy is to collect dissemination artifacts as well, although they freeze the preparatory stages in a "flattened" version, with a loss of technical creative information. Further donations or acquisitions should lead us to invest in specific skills and equipment to this software to promote the sustainability of accessing InDesign projects.
In the years to come, thanks to our experience with the representative case of Sébastien Marchal collection, we intend to negotiate with other graphic designers to give us data according to our preservation policy, hoping to build a contemporary graphic design reference collection at BnF.[4]
The author would to like to thanks all the members of the Digital Preservation team at BnF as well as Sandrine Maillet, collection manager for posters, and Chloé Perrot, referent for digital entries in the Engravings department who have contributed to this reflection.
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